


In Between the Coiled Snake

by ItsJustaDressDummy



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Asanoya Week 2020 (Haikyuu!!), F/F, F/M, Historical References, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Reincarnation, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26948713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsJustaDressDummy/pseuds/ItsJustaDressDummy
Summary: Five times Asahi and Noya met and didn’t quite make it, and one time they did.-Written for AsaNoya Week 2020 for the prompt "soulmates".
Relationships: Azumane Asahi/Nishinoya Yuu
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29
Collections: Asanoya Week 2020





	In Between the Coiled Snake

1.

If Kaori really thought about it, she didn’t remember meeting Mei. She knew that they had run into each other while she had been out in the forest hunting for bugs, and Mei had been on the brink of tears, because she had gone lost, but that was mainly because Mei had recounted it to her. To Kaori, Mei had always been there, calling her name, reminding her to be careful, holding her hand even when Kaori claimed that she didn’t need to.

From that particular day, Kaori could only recall the bafflement she’d felt at seeing Mei’s village, because it had been… clean. That wasn’t how Kaori’s parents had explained it to her. They had said that this part of the forest was dirty. That the people that lived here were dirty, that the filthiness that inhabited them reached down to their soul and that they could not be purified of it. That Kaori was to never, ever go there, because she would become filthy, too, and that there would be no saving her.

But Kaori looked at the smiling faces of Mei’s parents when she returned her home, at the colorful collection of rocks Mei introduced her to and how carefully she petted the pigs through the fence. She saw how Mei’s mother washed their chipped dishes and how her father cleaned their knives in the fire.

There was no filth here, and while Kaori couldn’t squint into their souls to confirm their purity, she just decided to trust her gut.

The first time Kaori visited Mei after having rescued her from evil forest monsters, Mei had been flabbergasted to see her. They had played the entire day away, during which Kaori had noticed the musing glances Mei kept stealing at her. Like she was asking herself what Kaori was doing here. But Kaori just thought that Mei was nice, in a way that none of the other children in her village were. So she kept coming back.

Years later, Kaori still kept coming back. Except for the games they played, not much changed. Mei grew taller, and her hair grew longer. She grew pretty, although this was the part that Kaori wasn’t sure about, because maybe Mei had always been pretty, but Kaori just hadn’t noticed? She did notice when Mei grew beautiful, though, because that would have been like not noticing that the sun had risen.

Instead of building mud castles, Kaori ran her fingers through Mei’s hair for hours and tried to see how many daisies she could weave in it. When she was able to smuggle discarded cloths and yarn from her parents' workshop, she taught Mei how to sew sashiko. They’d sit in the meadow with insects buzzing all around them and mend their clothes. Every time, Mei would fret that the cotton cloth was much too nice for her coarse hemp fabrics, but Kaori would shush her, telling her that she was worth every stitch. She liked saying that. Not only because it was true, but because Mei would blush and hide her red cheeks behind curtains of her hair.

When she brought Mei home, her parents would smile and tease Mei about her big sister. But she didn’t want to be Mei’s _sister_ , she would rather just stay her friend. Her best friend. Although it was common for sisters to be close, and nobody would probably batt an eye if they exchanged kisses on the cheek.

Kaori wanted that. To kiss Mei on the cheek, soft, a little lingering. Maybe squeeze her hand while she did it. It always looked so enticing. Mei’s hand. A little rough, a little dry, but Kaori knew that it was always warm. 

Kaori wasn’t surprised when her parents finally introduced her to a matchmaker and made her _swear_ that she would stop visiting the defiled village. She simply swore on her own grave and broke it the same day. As if she could stay away. Not even if her parents threatened her, not even if her siblings beat her, not even if her fiancé told her that she was showering him with dishonor.

The only person that succeeded was Mei. Sobbing, raising her fingers to shiver them against Kaori’s bruised eyes and mouth. Her eyes brimming with horror and guilt and tears. She had looked beautiful, because there never could be a moment where she didn’t. Even when she was telling Kaori to never come back, to never set foot into their village again. Kaori lied and brushed her lips over Mei’s cheek in parting, soft, but much too fast. Mei’s head turned, and they almost brushed against Mei’s lips. Skimmed right against the corner of her mouth. Only a hair’s breadth too far.

Kaori left the village. A handful of days later, she married in a too heavy kimono surrounded by too happy faces. She drank from her sake cup and tried to exactly recall the contorted expression on Mei’s face the first time they tried it together. Although the wedding night was distasteful, Kaori was glad when she didn’t bleed the month after. At least, she had a reason to refuse her husband at night. 

130 days. That was how long she decided to wait before seeing Mei again. The number had just come to her when her father had gifted her a pregnancy sash. Her mother had helped her tie the silk around her abdomen while Kaori smiled at herself in the mirror and thought _130 is not long at all_.

At day 129, Kaori became too impatient to wait. She told her mother that she would go to the shrine early in the morning to pray alone and wait for her there. Bundled in layers of cotton held together with Mei’s sashiko stitching, Kaori stepped out into the cold. She didn’t really need the lantern, but it would have aroused even more suspicion if she would have braved the path in the dark. So she walked with her lantern, breath leaving her mouth in thick fog. Maybe Mei would be awake, pressing a steaming cup of tea into her frigid hand and urging Kaori to come warm herself up next to her by the fire. Or maybe she would be sleeping still, and Kaori would hear her open the door only for Mei’s heavy eyes to grow large, whispering Kaori’s name into the morning air. 

But Mei wasn’t at her parents’ hut. She had married, too, her mother said. The tanner, because it made sense for Mei, since he received the right to pluck the pigs to be slaughtered for his wares right out of the herd. Kaori didn’t understand how that made sense, but she understood the way the world worked, and so she just gave a tight smile and asked where the tanner lived.

Mei’s mother showed her the way as the frosty ground cracked under their feet like parched grass.

They knocked on the tanner’s door, but received no answer. No voice, no sound. They knocked again, after which Mei’s mother just rolled her eyes, murmured something about drinking like a fish and opened the door. 

She was wrapped up in a straw mat. She was wrapped up, like an unsightly carpet that you planned to get rid of, but never did. The blood that had seeped through the fibres had stained the mat in patches of dark brown, had oozed into the mud floor beneath her. Her hair stuck to the ground in a messy kid’s scrawl. Whimpering, they ripped it from the floor, because they needed to know, they had to make sure, that this body, that it was truly…

Kaori knew Mei’s face, every curve and every ridge and every slope. So even with it beaten into a swollen mess of dark grey skin and frayed into frozen edges by rats’ teeth, Kaori knew that this was Mei.

She screamed and couldn’t stop screaming. Even when it rasped her vocal cords as thin as a thread, she couldn’t stop screaming Mei’s name. Not when she vomited, not when she cried did she stop. Over and over, when her stomach cramped and her insides bled, when she was carried home and her parents cursed her, when a doctor wiped at her legs and told her that she was giving birth.

Kaori didn’t stop screaming.

2.

Hanzo didn’t know that he had met Asuka, only that two women and a man stumbled upon him as he was bleeding out. 

The ashes and sparks of Osaka castle lashed through the streets, but Hanzo was still. The sword had gouged him deep. Just a flash of silver in the dark, and a heartbeat later Hanzo had a hole in his stomach. The enemy had left him to die, likely thinking that going after the Toyotomi clan would yield greater rewards than to kill one of their samurai.

It was just as well. A fitting death for a samurai that hardly deserved the title. It would be useless in the shogunate’s reign, anyway. Nobody had use for a warrior in times of peace.

Hanzo pressed his hand against the wound. He was just waiting now. For his blood to flow out of his body and soak into his armor and the street, for death to come. Waiting was all he’d done his entire life, so it felt familiar. Like slipping into a coarse kimono that you owned, the wear of which you neither liked nor hated.

He just hoped that the owner of the tea shop he was leaning against wouldn’t be too mad about the stains.

Shuffling footsteps sounded through the smoke. Hanzo watched the clouds billow and rear up high like a horse before they revealed three figures wandering in the shadows. Two women and a man. Furoshiki strapped around their upper bodies, simple robes wrapped around them. Peasants. Or servants, most likely, just now fleeing from the flaming castle. But not in the right direction, no, escaping just into the arms of Ieyasu’s soldiers. 

„Not, not that way,“ Hanzo coughed rather than called. 

The refugees stopped in their tracks, cloaked heads turning into his direction. Logically, there was no reason for them to be afraid with him decked out in the Toyotomi armor, but he watched them hissing to each other before approaching him.

They eyed him carefully. Not a word left them as the man crouched down before him. Or rather, boy. A handsome boy. Extraordinarily so, although Hanzo couldn’t be sure with the cloth tied over his mouth and nose. His judgement was less based on observation and more on a feeling. The one that burst through him when he looked into those eyes, the one that leaked all over his hand.

„Ieyasu’s men… They’re there. You should go North. Up… Up…“ His breath rattled in his throat, but Hanzo pressed on. „Up Okawa river, and Yodo river… Further North.“

The boy nodded. His eyes shone like stars in the dark.

Clumsily, Hanzo fumbled out the dagger wedged against his stomach. Even in the muted light, he could see that it was filthy with his blood. Hanzo wiped it against the leather of his cuisse, offered it out in a trembling hand.

„Be careful,“ he croaked.

The boy hesitated, but then wrapped his hand around the handle, right where Hanzo’s signature was carved. Their fingers didn’t touch, but for a moment, they looked at each other. Hanzo opened his mouth to rasp something, because then the boy might let him hear his voice, too.

But he just nodded again, secured the dagger in his obi as he left. The smoke swallowed the boy and his companions up in mere seconds.

Hanzo wanted to split with laughter, but there was no strength left in him. Somewhere behind the tea shop, the bombardment rose again. Cannons ruptured through the castle walls as if they were matches, and a large chunk of the construction blew right off and down the castle mound. Hanzo knew that, because that wreck of blazing wood and stone flew through the night sky right in front of him, dragging fire across the darkness like the tail of a comet.

It was a spectacle, and Hanzo watched it with his eyes open as long as he could.

3.

Chouko only met Ivo because he stopped her on the street. With a very simple „Excuse me?“, while she was still fuming over the insolence of that Chinese tradesman, who wouldn’t let her buy the leaves for the same price her father received.

Chouko’s expression as she turned around must have still been a little thunderous, since the man’s smile slipped from his face. So she unclenched her jaw and tried a polite, „Yes?“

„I couldn’t help but notice that you are carrying tea leaves,“ the man gushed, „Do you happen to know a good tea house nearby?“

His lips quirked up into a smile again. There was something strange about his face, his whole appearance, really. His hair was a dull black, no shine, no gloss. As if to counter that drabness, his eyes blinked at her illuminated in curiosity. In combination with that smile, those eyes were really… well, they were truly…

„Are you-“

„Yes! I know a tea house!“ Chouko blurted. She spun on her heel in the hopes that the stranger wouldn’t see her blush. „Please follow me,“ she said.

The man fell in step with her. He positively radiated as he walked, and Chouko had to avert her gaze so she wouldn’t get caught up in him again.

By the time they had reached the tea house, she knew that the man was called Yamada Gonbei and had come to Nagasaki to expand his ink stone business. By the time she’d been talked into having tea with him, and „Yamada“ had confused his own name several times while surreptitiously trying to lead Chouko into reading the menu aloud, she had come to a conclusion.

To confirm it, Chouko leaned in close and whispered, „I’m sorry, but are you a spy? Or on the run?“

„Yamada“’s face was such an obvious mask of nonchalance that she had to snort. Before he could protest, she continued, „Forgive my impudence, but you are obviously not Japanese, although you do look the part. There… seems to be just something slightly strange about you. And you can’t read, which I would deem rather unlikely considering that you are a salesman.“

„Yamada“ gaped at her, and Chouko couldn’t keep from laughing. Unfortunately, she forgot to hide her mouth with the corner of her kimono and probably looked like a fool. 

The man in front of her didn’t seem to mind. He actually grinned at her, the picture of delight. Chouko flushed from head to toe with it.

„You are spot on!“ he cried. Entirely unconcerned, he confided that he was half-Japanese, hailing from Rotterdam and setting foot in Japan for the first time. That his father had been the kapitan in Dejima for a year and smuggled his mother over the sea back to the Netherlands with him. That his name was actually Ivo.

Chouko could hardly believe it. A foreigner! Right in front of her! Drinking _tea_!

To her own surprise, the first thing out of Chouko’s mouth was, „What is it like to travel?“

When Ivo smiled, luring her in like a moth to the light, Chouko almost regretted her question. Ivo’s excitement shone through that smile, his gaze, his fingertips. Chouko hung to his every word as if he was reciting the most captivating poem, but actually he told her about Amsterdam, about the trip to the Islamic kingdoms in the South, which Ivo called Dutch East Indies, and India. 

She watched Ivo’s hands as they sketched the many-armed Gods he’d seen on paintings in Calcutta. He was so beautiful that Chouko found herself fumbling with her collar, her hair, a feeble attempt to polish herself and match his beauty.

It took Chouko’s neighbor busting into their conversation for her to realize that they had been drinking tea for much too long. After she had talked off her neighbor’s nosiness, Chouko picked up her package and paid. Ivo stumbled out of the shop after her, and Chouko intended to smile at him, tell him how nice it was to have met him, but that she had to deliver these tea leaves now and be on her way.

Instead, she said, „Could, could you wait for me here? I have to bring this package to a customer, but I could show you Kofuku Temple afterwards?“

Ivo beamed at her. It infused her like a special kind of tea, warm and soothing, and then so scalding it set her chest on fire. Chouko was gone and back in an embarrassingly short time.

They walked to Kofuku Temple, and Chouko demonstrated how to pay proper respect to the enshrined deity Mazu. Walking on the temple grounds, Chouko recited the legend of the seafarer goddess to Ivo. Unaccustomed to being the subject of such rapt attention, she grabbled with the words, stuttered over her sentences, tucked her face to the side. But every time she’d turn to Ivo, he’d be right there, looking at her, nodding along in encouragement.

Chouko wasn’t known for her eloquent wit, so it shocked her whenever Ivo broke out into laughter at some of her quips. She was so entranced by his glowing face and weird hair that she only noticed he’d dragged her to a woodblock print shop when they stood in front of it. Although she protested, Ivo tugged her inside. He swooned over any print he got his hands on while Chouko pretended she wasn’t there. It was not befitting for a woman to be seen in such shops. Unfortunately, Ivo did not possess an ounce of tact and kept shoving prints under her nose while asking questions.

When he showed her a picture of a couple engaged in certain intimate activities and wondered about the overlarge size of their genitalia, of all things, Chouko hissed through tight lips, „It’s so you can see them better.“

Ivo burst into such boisterous laughter they immediately had to leave the shop. Fighting a smile, Chouko attempted to berate him, but Ivo was cackling so much she didn’t get a word in. In the end, she just pulled him to a street vendor selling grilled eel and demanded to be treated.

Ivo was more than happy to do just that. They ate, they sauntered through the streets, they ate more. They roamed the shelves of a rangaku shop, over its existence Ivo was ecstatic. He explained the use of any kind of object that caught Chouko’s eyes, gawked at their prices, whispered lines of adventure books into her ear.

Chouko didn’t know what time it was once they left the shop, but neither did she care. Without asking, she lead Ivo to the theater and purchased seats for The Love Suicides at Sonezaki. Chouko already knew the story, but thought that it might be a nice introduction to theater. As it turned out, she was right and wrong at the same time. Ivo seemed fascinated by the drama, the dancing, the painted faces, less so by the story itself.

Once they exited the theater, Chouko tried to convince him of the story’s suspense just as the first raindrops hit her nose. They were drenched in seconds, rain pelting down on their heads like hail. Laughing a little out of surprise, Chouko turned to Ivo, only to be met with horror-stricken eyes, because… because Ivo’s hair was _melting_.

„Oh,“ Chouko gasped, before grasping Ivo’s wrist and herding him through the wet streets. A few turns, a couple of near collisions, and they caught their breath in the canopied alley next to a closed ink shop. 

Chouko stared at Ivo, at the rain water running in black rivulets down his face and neck. She brushed her fingers through his wet hair, smudged the dark water between her fingertips.

It was soot. Ivo had smeared soot into his hair to make it appear darker.

Chouko snorted as she wiped at Ivo’s face with the sleeves of her kimono. That only made it worse, dragging the grime over his forehead and nose. Giggling, Chouko rubbed her hands over his face. The soot left dark gray splotches on Ivo’s skin, stripes where her fingers had tried to swipe the black back into his hair.

It was a hopeless cause. The water kept dripping down Ivo’s face, leaving behind dark traces, but Ivo didn’t seem to mind. He just watched Chouko laughing at his misfortune. 

She held Ivo’s face in her hands. His gorgeous face with the now brighter hair and eyebrows, with the skin tinged in black and covered in the marks of Chouko’s fingers.

Cradled in between her hands, Ivo looked at her and asked, „Will you marry me?“

Chouko opened her mouth, closed it. Swallowed the dry nothing in it down and replied, „Yes.“

They kissed. A quick press, moist only because of the rain water, and Chouko had to snort, because she didn’t have a clue what she was doing. Ivo smiled, too, so Chouko knew it was alright. Their teeth clacked. Ivo nipped at her lip a little too harshly and left a tender spot behind, but he’d worry at it with his tongue and that felt _nice_.

Time passed, impossible to tell how much. Chouko’s mouth felt swollen, sensitive when she parted from Ivo and removed his hand from her back. She held it in her own as she walked further into the alley, weaved through gaps and corners, along wooden walls all the way home. Noiselessly, they climbed into her room over the porch, shed their clothes just as quietly. Elbows found temples, knees found stomachs. They snickered and hissed, and then Chouko groaned, because it _hurt_ , but then it was already over, and Ivo was just inside, just resting. Chouko drifted her fingers over Ivo’s head. She held him close, tight. He slipped out and stroked her with his hand, which was, well, and then they embraced again, and that, that was…

The next morning, Chouko woke to Ivo humming a song. Something light, airy, just like the finger pads brushing over her cheek. Chouko smiled and turned her head, kissed Ivo’s fingertips just as her door slipped open.

Her mother stared at them. Chouko saw her eyes track over their naked forms, just what was visible to her. She didn’t utter a word and closed the door.

They looked at each other. Blankets and clothes rustled. Chouko stared at Ivo. She saw that his hair was a dark brunet now. She saw the worry etched into his face, the same one she felt in her chest. Still, Chouko kissed him gently, because she was certain.

Together, they left her room. Her mother already sat in the tatami room. She didn’t scream, but explained in excruciating detail what a failure of a daughter Chouko was. In an abstract way, it hurt, because that’s what being the source of shame felt like. But there was also a part of Chouko that didn’t care. She knew the implications of what she’d done, and she could never regret it.

Ivo tried to explain their engagement, but Chouko’s mother wouldn’t listen to him. Even when her father returned from his morning deliveries, there was no screaming. Quiet disappointment and disgust, and a wall of negation, of a thousand times _no_.

For hours, they tried. To talk, to change minds, to conjure that _no_ into a _yes_. It only ended when Chouko’s father walked out onto the street and came back with doshin patrols. Her parents didn’t even need to say anything. The doshin saw Ivo’s light hair and eyes and wrenched him out of the house. Ivo resisted, reached for her hand, but was pulled away before Chouko could touch him. His face contorted in panic, his handsome, carefree face. So Chouko smiled at him from the incisions of her soul, absolutely certain of them, together.

After the doshin left, her mother brewed tea for Chouko. She was surprised when her mother took her hand and enraged when she told her that they could remove anything that might be springing to life in Chouko.

The day dragged on. Chouko had a meal at some point. She was kept in her room, where she stayed without making a noise. By nightfall, she could tell her parents were relieved by her quietness. She had one last tea with her parents. Afterwards, she went up the stairs to her room, slipped inside and outside again through the window.

Chouko was by no means elegant, but she could be silent when she needed to. With a scarf tied around her hair and half of her face, she stepped out onto the street. They lived fairly close to the sea, so she reached the Naval Training Center in under ten minutes. She sauntered down the pier. It was simply a wide staircase, leading straight into the waves. Not many lanterns were lit here, and Chouko had made sure that she was dressed in black. If she was quiet, nobody would even see her stepping into the sea.

Her heart drummed in her throat as she looked to the dark shape of Dejima out in the ocean, the artificial island. It was the only place where they could have brought him. Nobody wanted the Dutch-Japanese relations to sour, and he was the son of a former commander of the island. They couldn’t touch him. Instead, they would keep him in Dejima until a ship sailed back to China or India and send him back to Rotterdam. And Chouko would be on that ship with him. Holding his hand and marveling at the open sea. Chouko would be there, wandering through streets she never knew existed, witnessing all the tiny wonders with Ivo, seeing his home, his family. His face, in light and darkness, in the morning and in the evening. Chouko would be his wife.

She stepped down onto the last step, waves nipping at her sandals. In theory, Chouko knew how to swim, but she had never attempted it. Fear tore at her when she noticed the distance between the steps she was standing on and the ones on Dejima. Of course, she couldn’t see them in the darkness, but she knew they were there. Other than the bridge, it was the only way to approach the island. The only way for Chouko to enter without being questioned.

Her heart hammered in her torso so hard Chouko felt the vibrations in her fingertips. There had been many fears in Chouko’s life up until the moment she had met Ivo. They were persistent, of course, still crouching somewhere in the corner of her mind. But right now, she could outgrow all of them. Just this once, just for love, she could be fearless.

Chouko took another step and slipped away into the sea.

4.

Noriko didn’t know who she had found when she tripped over the body of a woman floating in her rice field. She noticed her torn, but mostly intact clothes first. Then the dark cloud of her hair, wafting around her head like ink spilled in water. Her limbs that drifted on the surface perfectly still.

With an arising feeling of horror in her stomach, Noriko stepped closer. She lived together with her family in an old shack close to the village, but wasn’t familiar with a lot of people. Still, this could be a woman she knew. Somebody she’d seen around, tending to her own crops or playing with her children.

Touching a dead body meant defiling herself, but Noriko never worried much about these things. She crouched down into the water, lifted the tendril-like hair from the woman’s face.

Noriko didn’t know this woman. She was a stranger. Maybe she should have been relieved seeing the chalk-white face of a nobody, but Noriko had to swallow a quiet sob. Just one.

Then she stood up, walked out of the rice field and into the village to alert the police. By nightfall, she had already forgotten Yuri’s face.

5.

Hibiki was so furious she was shaking when she crashed into Isamu. It just didn't make sense to her. And how could it? Throwing your stupid life away for a war that was clearly already lost, for superiors that told you they would enshrine your soul at Yasukuni? It served absolutely nothing. A waste of a life, and her brother had volunteered his own. They all did, apparently, but Hibiki refused to believe that. Not everybody could be as patriotic and misguided as her brother. So colossally stupid, so resentful, when all she'd done was stitch a Senninbari for him to protect him or console him or be whatever he needed from it when he nosedived into a ship.

He didn't even care that Hibiki had stood at Asakusa shrine and wept with the women assisting her in sewing the cloth. He didn't want her to be sad, didn't want her protection. He asked her to be happy and rejoice in the honor he was receiving with his death. And she'd left no stone unturned just to see him on last time, just to give him her One-Thousand Stitch. It was only thanks to her friend working her fingers to the bones as a secretary on the base that she was even here. If she got caught in this labyrinth there would be hell to pay for her.

Just then, Hibiki knocked into a figure as she stomped around a corner in the administration building. She had half a mind to just shove past the idiot, but clung to the shred of good manners she had still left.

"Sorry," Hibiki grumbled. Well, maybe less of a shred and more of a smidgen.

But the figure already steadied her with a hand pressing into her shoulder. "No, no, I'm sorry," he said, "Are, are you okay?"

Some of Hibiki's ire evaporated when she noticed the man's aviator overall. "You're a pilot," she noted.

The man made an agreeable sound. Hibiki's eyes flicked up to his face. There were shadows around his eyes, like he didn't catch much sleep. Or he was recently involved in a fight, and the bruises were fading. "Which unit?" Hibiki asked.

Something much darker than shadows settled over the man's face. A suffocating gloom, a veil severing him from the rest of humanity. Hibiki's chest squeezed so hard she tensed her arms to protect herself against it.

"Unit..." The man's voice gave out on him, and he cleared his throat. "Unit..." But nothing else came forth.

Hibiki swallowed. "Are you... flying to Luzon tomorrow?"

The man nodded.

"My brother, too," Hibiki said, desperate to distract herself from the fact that this man in front of her would be dead in a handful of days, "He's flying. Tomorrow. He's in Unit Yamato."

"Oh," the pilot breathed and looked at her in sympathy. _He_ looked at _her_ in sympathy. "He, what's his name?"

"Kubo Hideki," she replied. A name very much like her own, and still, she had never met anybody so much her opposite. "Do you know him?" she asked.

The man nodded. "Fleetingly. He, he had never mentioned he had a pretty sister."

Had, had he just... Hibiki gaped at this person in front of her. Never in her entire life had Hibiki been called pretty. A tomboy, an ugly duckling, and sometimes, grudgingly, a capable arm wrestler. The man didn't even appear to have noticed what he had said. He simply looked at her while she tried to contain her blush to the inappropriate amount of flattery she felt.

"Do you have any siblings?" Hibiki blurted. When the man shook his head, she probed further, "Close family?" She felt cruel as the man shook his head again, like she was evoking unpleasant reminders for no reason.

Hibiki clenched her fists tighter together, felt a soft bulge in the pocket of her skirt. Oh! She hastily pulled the wrinkled Senninbari from it. Without questioning herself, she offered it to the pilot.

"Please take this," she said, didn't let him open his mouth to voice the refusal she saw on his face, "I made it for Hideki, but he didn't want it. The women at Asakusa shrine helped me, so it's probably really effective, and we even sewed some coins inside for good luck. You have to take it."

And then again, because it was suddenly vital, because it could not be any other way, Hibiki begged, "Please take it.“

Silently, the pilot accepted her gift. His fingers brushed over the red knots she’d stitched, skimmed the coins dangling like prayer beads from it. The man looked at her. He smiled a soft little thing, so watery it almost ran off his face. Hibiki's chest squeezed again, but this time it choked her all the way up in her throat. It was probably that feeling that made her throw her arms around him and hug him tight.

„The Gods, they grant wishes for things like this, did you know?“ Hibiki whispered into his ear, „For, for being brave. For protecting our people and fighting. When you see them, they will grant you what you ask for. Did, did you know that?“

Hibiki could feel it when the man crumbled in her arms. 

As his hands touched her waist, the coins chimed. „They do?“ he asked, voice rough like sandpaper. The tremble in his shoulders, how his Adam’s apple twitched as he gulped something down, she, she could feel all that.

„Yes,“ Hibiki lied, „They do, so think about that, about the, when you, think about that.“

His head sketched a movement that could have been a nod. The stubble on his cheek rasped against her jaw, and Hibiki blushed a furios red. She stepped back. Her hands were shaking a little, so she crammed them into her pockets.

„Thank you,“ the pilot said. Shadows smudged the smile still floating on his face.

„You’re welcome,“ Hibiki choked out and averted her gaze. She wanted to look at him, but couldn’t make herself do it.

Quickly, Hibiki bowed from the waist and mumbled, „Goodbye.“

As she hurried away and rounded the next corner, a quiet chime reached her ears.

Hibiki sat with her mother in the living room when the radio boasted of the successes the first units of kamikaze fighters had achieved. Her mother smiled and cried, and Hibiki drank her tea.

Afterwards, when she was alone, Hibiki thought about Hideki, but always she found her thoughts drifting to the pilot.

She wondered if the Senninbari had touched him. If it had been wrapped around his hand or stuffed next to his chest when he crashed the plane, if it had burnt into ashes together with him, carrying him on the waves of the wind and up into the sky. 

+1

Asahi walked out of the Amsterdam Fashion Institute smelling his hands. The scent of the wet willow twigs clung to them a little, evoking the thought of autumn days spent walking along a lake. He smiled to himself. What an extraordinary idea to weave the top of a basket and let it fade out into a fabric skirt! Etsuko was really thriving at this place, much more than she had done at their label in Harajuku. Asahi recalled her wildly gesticulating hands, the way she'd practically bubbled over with energy as she'd shown him how to bend the softened twigs. There was not a doubt in him that Etsuko would go on to create amazing things in the industry after she’d done her masters at this place.

Hurrying over a small bridge bowing over the canal, Asahi checked his phone. Already past five, which meant that Noya was done with his shift at the bike shop. If Asahi was fast, he might just make it back to the house before Noya, maybe prepare a small snack before they went to Greetje.

He arrived at the corner of Korte's-Gravesandestraat just as the tram rang its bell and rolled into the station. Asahi had to jog a little bit to make it, but hopped onto the train just in time.

The white painted window frames and brick houses flew past him. Although it was technically already rush hour, the tram was not too crowded. Asahi had a short commute with only four stations to pass, so chances were good that he would make it before Noya. He smiled at little at nothing.

At Weesperplein, where the tram was joined by a metro station, the amount of commuters in the train grew. Asahi shuffled a little to the windows, made room for a woman with a stroller. His eyes wandered over the heads, watching, a little bit bored.

It was just a second. Just a second of the throng of commuters aligning in the most perfect way, creating a gap just past the shoulders and backs to see into the next wagon. Of Asahi staring into that breach and gasping at the spiked hair, the strong jaw, the brilliant eyes looking back at him in recognition, in rapidly blooming affection.

The lump of people stretched and swallowed the gap, but Asahi was already walking, grinning in delight. Just a turn of the head and a sweep of the eyes at the exactly right moment. It _thrilled_ him. Down to his very bones, it thrilled him. This connection between them, inexplicable, invisible, but pulsing and so very warm.

Asahi wove in between headphone cords and rucksacks, stepped over bags and shoppers. He chuckled as he watched Noya's hair bob up and down among the sea of commuters like the head of a seal. The smile never left Asahi's lips, only grew larger when he reached the link between trains, and Noya rounded a tourist and stood right in front of him. His face glinted at Asahi so brightly it could have been carved from diamonds. Noya raised himself a little on his tiptoes while Asahi bent down. Their lips met in the middle, curved into smiles. It felt soft, but then it felt hard when Noya burst a laugh right against Asahi's mouth, and Asahi was kissing his teeth. Giggling, he pulled back, stared at Noya's radiating face. At that moment, Asahi felt like he could have just lifted right off into the sky.

„Hey you,“ Noya said.

Their shoes were only centimeters apart, Noya’s hair just reaching up to Asahi’s lips. He was the perfect height for forehead kisses, and Asahi loved to take advantage of that fact. So he did.

When he parted from Noya’s skin, Asahi breathed, „Hello.“

The drive was made even shorter by Noya’s wild smile and even wilder words. He described his shift down to the kind of lubricant oil he’d used. By the time Noya had finished, they were walking down Prinsengracht with their fingers intertwined. Once upon a time, Asahi would have felt the stares of strangers judging him for this kind of audacity, but Noya’s shameless brand of affection had bullied the discomfort right out of him.

The key rattled in the lock, and they entered the brick house. Asahi actually kind of loved this place. It was a charming home, looking out over Prinsengracht canal, full of well-kept antiques and cozy armchairs. Noya had befriended the owners during his first visit to Amsterdam when he’d worked in their tulip shop. Asahi hadn’t met them, but knew that they were a middle-aged couple who loved to spend their summers in Malaga. Apparently, they had been more than happy to have Noya and „his handsome boyfriend“ watch their house while they were off surfing.

As Noya tore off his clothes yelling about having a shower, Asahi walked into the kitchen. Noya’s lightning-quick showers were the stuff of legends, so there really wasn’t any time to prepare a snack. Asahi just got two beers out of the fridge. To make it at least a little bit fancy, he sliced a lemon and squeezed the wedges down the bottle neck.

He had just fluffed up the throw pillows and opened the balcony door when Noya rubbed his wet hair all over Asahi’s neck. He shrieked, and Noya, of course, cackled like the little shit he was. Asahi retaliated by grabbing Noya’s head and shoving his tongue into his mouth. Every time, it worked like a charm. Noya would abandon whatever shenanigans he was up to in favor of kissing Asahi breathless. Snaking his arms around Asahi’s neck, pressing himself close, sliding his tongue in and out of his mouth.

When they parted, Asahi couldn’t help but chase after the kiss. Grinning, Noya granted him one last taste before grabbing their beers.

Asahi sat down on one of the throw pillows, stretched his legs out over the step leading onto the narrow balcony, but Noya was having none of that. He squeezed his tight butt between Asahi’s thighs, completely ignoring the second throw pillow resting next to Asahi’s. He snorted as he spread his legs and Noya claimed the space like a fat pigeon preparing a nest. 

Noya handed him a beer, gave him a smile and clanked their bottles together. They took a swig from their lemon infused drinks. It was warm, so their bottles started to sweat in mere minutes. The canal reflected the spotless sky in a bright blue, but the bridge crossing over it revealed the true bleakness of the water in its shadow. Impenetrable murkiness lurked underneath the surface. Asahi began to feel uncomfortable whenever he stared at it for too long, so he tried not to. Still, that was nothing compared to how Noya seemed to hate dark waters.

„How long has it been, then?“ Noya asked.

Asahi pressed the tip of his nose into Noya’s wet hair. It was a game they played every year. Noya would ask, and Asahi would pretend like he had forgotten, starting a competition on who could come up with the most ridiculous guess. From 19 minutes to 137 autumn moons, all was fair.

It had been six years now. _Six_ years. Asahi knew that in the grand scheme of things, spending six years side by side with the person you loved was nothing. But suddenly, it felt tremendous. Like reaching the peak of a mountain you had been trying to climb all your life. Witnessing the view from the top for the first time, exhilaration pounding in your blood and the knowledge that… you finally made it.

Trembling and trying to suppress it, Asahi wrapped his arms around the man sitting in his lap. He thought he could feel the link between them shiver and throb, warm like the feeling of Noya’s hand in his, but that could have been his imagination.

His voice cracked a little bit when Asahi whispered into Noya’s hair, „Six years.“

He already prepared himself for some fond teasing, but when Noya turned around in his embrace, his eyes blinked up at him in damp devotion.

„Yeah,“ Noya agreed, wiping at his eyes, smile so bright Asahi’s heart burst right open.

**Author's Note:**

> This idea was haunting me for quite some time, and I felt it fit pretty well to this prompt. I learned a lot of things during the research, among which is that one of the first units employed for the kamikaze Special Attack Force was a unit called Asahi. How sad is that?
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, although this was pretty depressing. Also, I did the whole AsaNoya Week 2020!! Two months too late, but I did it! Thank you very much for reading, hope to see you again soon! :)


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